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Even with perfect creep management and an early starting tumor, it isn't possible to have a creep highway to your opponent's base until the mid-to-late game. This is assuming he hasn't destroyed any tumors, an act that sets you back SEVERELY since you need to bring up a Queen.
The result is that Zerg offense is almost impossible in the early and mid game, since Hydras and Roaches are unusably slow and can't retreat. You have to be completely certain of game-ending victory to attack with anything more significant than Zergling runarounds. That (and other issues of Zerg suckiness) lead to Zerg players being 100% defensive and macroing up until the late late game.
I will say this, however: creep is a double-edged sword. When you have it all over the map, it is simply too good. You have vision of everything and your forces are absurdly mobile. But you can't do jack until you have it over the entire map, or at least a good portion of it.
Personally I think that the fixing of Zerg will involve units, but creep is an important factor that can't be overlooked.
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On August 17 2010 17:46 Endymion wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 16:05 zomgtossrush wrote: You first 2 paragraphs told us nothing that isn't obvious to even the newest of players.
You are basically complaining that you don't have the skill/apm/mechanics to use creep tumors/Oviepoop.
Having creep also gives a nice scouting advantage. It can force a waste of a scan, or leave ravens/obs out for sniping.
Let me translate your mindset to another situation:
Stalkers are terrible. They don't shoot fast enough and cant shoot while moving. They also don't have enough hp for me. They also are too high on the tech ladder and take WAY too long to make. They dont regenerate sheilds fast enough and lings counter them. They should also come with detection because zerg can burrow units. i can't pretend that this would be blanced, but i'd rather see the protoss benefit from making stalkers, other than just being able to kill shit.
How about you focus more on finding advantages with aspects of the game instead of dreaming about how to make things easier.
What? He isn't complaining about that at all, he is saying that zerg is too slow off of creep.. Spreading creep with ovies and tumors isn't permanent like speed was in SC1, it's easily countered with an obs or a quick scan. I agree, some units are painful off of creep, and when you have a toss or terran army at your front door, I assure you that any decent player won't be on creep. So know,"LOL GET APM" doesn't fix the speed problem of Zerg troops, it'll just get you supply capped if your using ovies to do it.
Dont bother explaining, these forums are slowly gaining more idiots by the seconds. They are soon taking over unless mods show how drunk on power they really are 
On topic: I really liked the read OP, you make a solid point that hits both balance and design, a perfect combination.
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I like the creep mechanic, but it does seem like it encourages zerg to play more like the other races -- i.e. to play fairly passively and then fight with big unit balls in the center of the map. I think there's less individuality in how the races play in SC2 compared to BW. I also wonder if some of the major reasons creep is in the game is because the designers thought it would be cool, and because it acts as an APM sink for higher level players. It makes me wonder how zerg would play if it always ran at a speed intermediate between on/off creep...
I also sometimes think that there is more potential for using hit-and-run zerg tactics than people are using right now. I feel like the 1 control group unit ball strategy works because playing BW for 12 years (or whatever) got people so macro focused that now when they play SC2 they concentrate on macro and don't sweat army control so much because it's so easy now. I do feel that as the beta progressed people started to use a more BW style of having multiple attack groups throughout the map. I wonder if that will continue to come back into style when SC2 becomes a major professional sport and pros really start to raise the bar of how SC2 will be played. Maybe then zerg will regain it's 'ninja' reputation a little bit.
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On August 17 2010 16:03 HelterSkelter wrote: I think a good solution would be to reverse creep. Instead of having Zerg move faster on creep, make enemies move slower. That way the advantage to spreading it is still great, but there isn't really a punishment if you don't.
I was recently talking to a friend and this is what I had come up with as well. If it was this way, a Zerg actively spreading creep would be put at an advantage, whereas currently actively spreading creep only brings you back to even in fights.
Also, it would make it much less devastating when opponents destroyed tumors.
If it was this way, it should not effect workers, to prevent a queen drop and quick tumor to slow down mining.
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Zerg is currently the most defensive and reactive out of all the races. Sure it's not "zergy", but personally I'm okay with it. There are still plenty of zergy things to do, mainly creep management and speedling counters, muta-harass, overseers are very zerg-like too.
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Seriously I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. It feels like Zerg has a great disadvantage off creep rather than having an advantage on creep. Moreover, creep is the only thing/mechanic Zerg has as a 'defender's advantage'. Hydralisk move speed off creep is ridiculous. Roach and banelings' movespeed off creep pre-upgrade is also safely kite-able, more so to MM with stim.
I don't get why so many people are saying SPREAD CREEP. This is about early game. Notice OP mentioning pre-lair? I'm sure these people don't play Zerg so they don't know how annoyingly slow creep spreads. Plus its impossible to spread creep all the way to your opponent's base in 15 minutes. Decent players also actively 'de-creeps' the map. Zerg already requires much more APM with the injections etc and yet we have to spread creep all over to remain competitive? It IS broken.
And i can't believe how many idiots posted in this thread. Lol seriously.. some of the replies...
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BW era zerg would dominate sc2 era zerg. How much de-evolution did they do in those years?
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The whole creep thing is just dumb and annoying.
"Hey guys, we're gonna take away your mobility and make your units slow like molasses. If you want the speed back, you have to spend extra time and energy to spread creep, which can easily be eliminated."
Blizzard is all like this now.
"Hey guys, we're gonna take away all the things from Bnet that you had for free. If you want them back, you have to pay us more money."
And etc...
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Maybe creep tumors could have more hp, more armor and some serious hp regen, so that it takes at least 5-6 marines and a raven to take it out. That way if someone is trying to hinder your creep spreading you can get free marine kills.
I like the creep mechanic, but I also feel that Zerg should be a fast race that is everywhere on the map at the same time, maybe roach speed could be hatch instead of lair?
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An extra queen is much cheaper than the bw method of using drones to make colonies plus it has other uses. Hydras could use a speed upgrade like they had in bw. It would help a little but the tanks smart cast would still dominate that matchup.
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Im all in favour for decrease (or eliminate altogether) creep speed boost and compensate accordingly with increase in unit base speed. Spreading creep will still be beneficial (it gives vision after all)
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I like the idea of faster regen on creep and no effect of creep on speed (which would have to be faster than current off-creep speed). Creep regen would have the opposite effect fast-creep currently has, by encouraging hit-and-run tactics.
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On August 17 2010 16:03 HelterSkelter wrote: I think a good solution would be to reverse creep. Instead of having Zerg move faster on creep, make enemies move slower. That way the advantage to spreading it is still great, but there isn't really a punishment if you don't.
That's actually a good idea
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On August 17 2010 16:05 zomgtossrush wrote: You first 2 paragraphs told us nothing that isn't obvious to even the newest of players.
You are basically complaining that you don't have the skill/apm/mechanics to use creep tumors/Oviepoop.
Having creep also gives a nice scouting advantage. It can force a waste of a scan, or leave ravens/obs out for sniping.
Let me translate your mindset to another situation:
Stalkers are terrible. They don't shoot fast enough and cant shoot while moving. They also don't have enough hp for me. They also are too high on the tech ladder and take WAY too long to make. They dont regenerate sheilds fast enough and lings counter them. They should also come with detection because zerg can burrow units. i can't pretend that this would be blanced, but i'd rather see the protoss benefit from making stalkers, other than just being able to kill shit.
How about you focus more on finding advantages with aspects of the game instead of dreaming about how to make things easier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
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ye especially hydralisks lack mobility off creep. I think a simple 150/150 upgrade would be enough to fix the issue. (stupid suggestion incoming)
Name: Whatever Cost: 100/100 / 150/150 Effect: Hydralisks now move at the same speed (on creep speed eh :D) on creep and off creep.
There are tons of way to balance and tweak the creep spreading system (and related bonuses) however I feel that the main problem is infact the SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW hydralisk. Roaches without speed are quite slow off creep too and that doens't help at all when being offensive early game, but I think other zerg units are pretty balanced in terms of movement speed as of now.
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This is so true. Zerg is supposed to be the swarm and swarm the enemy. Like in all of the cinematics they are fast and scary. The zergling is the only zerg unit that is fast enough to be zerg. Imo they should buff all of the zerg units speed and just use creep as a life regeneration thing.
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ive felt for the longest time that the creep speed bonus should be smaller and the natural movement speed of all zerg units should be higher. This would make the creep speed bonus actually a bonus rather than a necessity.
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On August 17 2010 16:03 HelterSkelter wrote: I think a good solution would be to reverse creep. Instead of having Zerg move faster on creep, make enemies move slower. That way the advantage to spreading it is still great, but there isn't really a punishment if you don't.
This.
I was thinking exactly the same thing and literally came on here today to post a thread suggesting it.
The only other creep advantage I would like to see, is allow tunneling units to traverse cliffs that are creeped.
As already stated, its all fair and good saying "Be more proactive spreading creep". But the worst thing for a Zerg player is (as already been stated) the point in the game where the enemy starts detecting the creep and killing it off. At that point there is zero chance of making it again. Why? Because you need to get your fat queen all the way up the map unscathed, poop out a bunch of Creep tumor and the start the spreading process all over again, and Guess what. The enemy can just as easily kill it off again. Remember One Creep tumor can only spawn one child tumor its entire life.
Using overlords is fine, but again during an enemy push, its a bit risky as it means your ovies are a target and losing Supply when the enemy is pushing is not good.
At the moment I feel Creep limits Zerg mobility not enhances it. I never ever want my Hydras off creep So I effectively "Tank walk" up the map with Zerg... Thats not right surely?
As suggested in this tread. Creep would be better if it reduced non-zerg speed rather than increased zerg speed. (so give all zerg units their on creep speed all the time)
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I think that the creep mechanic of SC2 is one of the best things they added. But they should make ovie creeppoop T1 (maybe upgradeable).
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On August 17 2010 16:35 purerythem wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2010 15:59 ahwala wrote: Yes. Zerg is broken in so many ways that it's impossible to fix, well at least until HotS, which is my last hope for SC2. isn't that like... 2+ years away, and in blizzard time, around 8-10?
You think we need to wait 8-10 years before the expansions? Wtf?! Get real please.
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